US legislator slams Trump-Netanyahu talks on displacing Palestinians
Senator Chris Van Hollen has responded to reports that Trump and Netanyahu spoke about their “plan to have Palestinians ‘voluntarily’ leave” Gaza during their meeting at the White House.
“Let’s be clear: nothing about this is voluntary — it would mean the coerced deportation of 2 million people from Gaza and U.S. taxpayers should have NOTHING to do with it,” he wrote on X.
Today Trump and Netanyahu talked about their plan to have Palestinians "voluntarily" leave Gaza.
Let's be clear: nothing about this is voluntary — it would mean the coerced deportation of 2 million people from Gaza and U.S. taxpayers should have NOTHING to do with it. pic.twitter.com/1acx5E4OqF
— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) April 8, 2025
Trump-Netanyahu meeting gives little hope of peaceful end to war
Matthew Duss, the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, says it looks unlikely that there will be a peaceful resolution to Israel’s war on Gaza.
“While Trump did clearly impose some pressure on Netanyahu, via his representative Steve Witkoff, to get the ceasefire in January, right ahead of his inauguration, the way he was talking today reflected what he has said previously about the plan for Gaza – which involves encouraging, if not outright expelling, Palestinians from Gaza and allowing Israel to take it over and develop it,” he told Al Jazeera.
“So I think certainly Palestinians, or anyone who wants the Gaza conflict, or indeed the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to be resolved peacefully, had to be very disappointed about what they heard from Trump.”
Trump says Palestinians could live in redeveloped Gaza ‘freedom zone’
In an Oval Office meeting with Netanyahu, the US president again pitched his idea to redevelop the “incredible piece of important real estate” that is the Gaza Strip into what he termed a “freedom zone”.
Netanyahu then denied that Israel is the one keeping Palestinians “locked in” the besieged enclave.
